“He’s not in Oath.”
Mr. Kitt arched a brow, but then Iris’s unspoken words seemed to hit him. “Some love you must have for him, then, Miss Winnow. To leave him behind in Avalon Bluff while you saved yourself.”
He stepped past her, finally quitting the flat.
Iris, pale and trembling, watched until he melted into the storm, his cologne and cigar smoke lingering behind to choke her. Tears burned her eyes. Tears and anger and remorse that felt like a knife, slicing her open to the bone.
She waited until she had closed and locked the door before she slowly sank to her knees.
{3}
Two Sides to Every Story
Dear Kitt,
I’m becoming a girl made of regrets.
Every morning, I wake from my gray, dreamless sleep and I think of you. I wonder where you are. If you are hurt or hungry or afraid. I wonder if you are above or below ground, if Dacre has chained you to the heart of the earth, so far down in his domain that I have no chance of ever finding you.
I wish that I had never let go of your hand that day. I should have stayed at your side when we were trying to help the soldiers on the hill. I should have refused to let the gas come between us. I should have known my brother wasn’t you. If I had done even one of these things, then you and I would still be together.
The front door opened.
Iris stopped typing, holding her breath. But she recognized the sound of Forest’s steps, and she quickly rose from her place on the floor, emerging from her bedroom to greet him.
He was knocking rain from his coat and boots. It was nearly evening, and Iris hadn’t known where he was. She hated how it tore the scab off a half-healed wound within her—all those hours her mother had come home late, and all the moments Iris had been worried about her but had done nothing about it.
Yet another thing Iris regretted.
Forest sniffed and froze. He glanced up, rain shining on his face, to meet Iris’s gaze from across the room.
“Were you smoking a cigar?” he asked, unable to hide his shock.
Iris winced. She should have done a better job of airing out the flat. “No.”
“Someone was here, then. Who? Did they hurt you?”
“No. I mean, yes,” she said, rubbing her brow. How much to say to Forest? “My father-in-law dropped in for a visit. He was asking me about Roman. Asking me where he is.”
Forest heaved a sigh. He bolted the door behind him and walked to the kitchen table to set down a paper bag. Dinner, by the smell of it.
“And what did you tell him?” he asked in a careful tone.
“That Roman isn’t in Oath. I didn’t say anything about Dacre.”
Forest set out two sandwiches, wrapped in newspaper. But Iris could see his jaw working, as if he were debating what he should say.
“Here, sit and eat,” he finally said, drawing out one of the kitchen chairs. “I got your favorite.”
Iris sat across the table from her brother, unwrapping her sandwich. It was indeed her favorite—turkey on rye with an extra slice of red onion—and her heart warmed until she saw there was a pickle resting on the bread. She had to swallow the lump in her throat. Swallow down the vivid memories of Roman again, that day she had sat beside him on a park bench, seeing who he truly was for the first time.
They ate in silence. Iris was coming to learn that Forest was very quiet these days. They both were, often finding themselves drawn inward. She was surprised when her brother gruffly broke the awkwardness.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got home from work today.” He paused, wiping the crumbs from his shirt. “I’ve been interviewing, trying to find a job.”
Iris’s brows rose. “Oh? That’s great news, Forest. Are you thinking to return to the horologist’s shop?”
Forest shook his head. “No. Too many questions if I go back there. They knew I enlisted and I don’t want to have to explain what happened.”
Iris understood. But she also didn’t want her brother to feel like he had to keep to the shadows and completely restart his life, all because Dacre had set his claws in him, manipulating him like a puppet.
She opened her mouth to say this, but then caught the words.
Forest glanced up. “What is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just … I’m proud of you.”
Her brother’s face creased. He suddenly looked like he was battling tears, and Iris rushed to add, in a lighter voice, “And it would be nice if you left a note for me, so I know you’re out but will be back. So I don’t worry. I actually got off work early today. Helena gave me and Attie the day off, and—”
“Why did she give you the day off?” Forest interjected, like he sensed the brewing storm.
Iris curled her tongue behind her teeth. Well, she thought, there’s no sense in delaying the inevitable.
“Iris?”
“Helena has asked me and Attie to return to the front.”
“Of course she has.” Forest tossed down the remainder of his sandwich. “You’ve only been back two weeks and she’s ready to send you off again!”
“It’s my job, Forest.”
“And you’re my sister! My little sister who I should have been protecting.” He dragged his hand through his damp hair, his lips pressing into a thin line. “I should have never left you and Mum. I should have stayed here, and none of this would have happened.”
This.
Forest being wounded and healed by Dacre, fighting for the enemy. Their mum succumbing to the bottle, being struck by a tram on a drunken walk home. Iris going to the front lines to report on the war, nearly blown to pieces by a grenade during the barrage.
It all felt hopelessly tangled, one thread entwined with the next.
“Why did you go?” Iris asked, so softly she wondered if Forest would ignore it.
She already knew part of the answer: her brother had enlisted because he had heard Enva playing her harp one evening on his walk home from work. And that song had pierced his heart with the truth about the war. For a complete stanza, Forest had seen the trenches as if he had been there. The wake of devastation Dacre’s forces left behind in small rural towns. Smoke and blood and ash that fell like snow.
“Do you mean what was I fighting for?” he countered.
Iris nodded.
Forest was quiet, picking a hangnail, but then he said, “I was fighting for us. I was fighting for your future. For mine. For the people in the west who needed aid. It wasn’t for Enva. Not really. She never once appeared at the front. She never once guided our forces after getting us to enlist.”
“And I write for the same reasons,” Iris said. “Knowing that … will you still keep me from going?”
Forest sighed, but he looked haggard. He placed a hand over his waist, and Iris knew he was touching one of his scars.